NYT Argument against interest

"The Left-Leaning Tower"

Give it up, would-be conservative academics, argues the New York Times:

Dr. Yancey, who describes himself as a political independent with traditional Christian beliefs and progressive social values, advises nonliberal graduate students to be discreet during job interviews. “The information in this research,” he wrote, “indicates that revealing one’s political and religious conservatism will, on average, negatively influence about half of the search committee one is attempting to impress.”...

If you were a conservative undergraduate, would you risk spending at least four years in graduate school in the hope of getting a job offer from a committee dominated by people who don’t share your views?

You might well select another career for yourself — but you wouldn’t exactly call it self-selection.
There is at least some chance that academia might choose you precisely because you don't share their views -- the virtue of diversity is, after all, supposed to be at the core of contemporary academic society. In theory, at least.

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